How to convince the boss it's time to invest in video marketing
By Gavin Banks
If you work in marketing or business development you’ll already know that video is a great way to reach your audience. While it used to be a nice optional extra video is now an essential part of consumer engagement. If you want to know how to convince the boss it’s time to invest in video marketing – and why video is such an important part of your business development strategy – read on.
“Visual marketing is on the rise… and will be a key component of the successful marketer’s 2016 strategy.”
Jason DeMers writing for Forbes.com
Well made video provides excellent return on investment
Most bosses just want to know what the bottom line is – how much a video will cost them. A brand film or branded video content that supports your business objectives is rarely cheap (check out 10 ways to save money on your corporate video production) but the benefits to business are many. Brand awareness and audience engagement are just the beginning.
Good ROI is important to everyone in business. It’s even more crucial for not-for-profits. A great charity we produced a video for found out just how powerful video marketing is. A video that cost less than $15,000 (below) helped them increase annual subscriptions by $500,000 – a 100% increase within twelve months.
Video increases the time a visitor spends on your website
The longer a visitor spends looking at your content the more likely they are to convert into buyers. Consumer time spent on your website is increased by 2-5 times when you have video content. Websites with video have sales conversion rates 30 – 40% higher than those without video content.
Video content improves your SEO
Websites with embedded video perform better in search engine rankings than those without. Having video on your website helps you feature ‘higher up’ in the results listings. Search engines look for websites with a mix of content types. They give a higher ranking to video content to ensure they are displaying mixed results. Greater exposure means a better chance of click through to your website, which is what every business wants. It’s simple – video brings more new customers to your website.
Internet users love sharing videos on social media
Producing sharable content is vital if you want consumers to engage with (and promote) your brand on social media. People love to watch funny, beautiful, or emotionally engaging video on their mobile devices, computers and smart TVs. According to Facebook a post using video has 100% more engagement than one without. If consumers really love something they share it. Websites with embedded video are three times more likely to get referrals from social media.Video is the fastest growing segment in online advertising
More and more businesses are investing in video to inform and educate their customers about what they do – as well as why and how they do it. YouTube is now the second most popular search engine in the world with four billion views per day! The number of hours people are watching YouTube is up 50% per month, year on year. By 2018 it is expected that video will account for 79% of consumer internet traffic. Is this a market your business can afford to ignore?
Have a clear plan about why video will work for your brand
When you are ready to approach your boss to discuss why video marketing is an important part of your marketing strategy, go in with a plan. Arm yourself with as many facts as possible (this blog should help). Identify what you want video to do for your business. Show examples of successful corporate videos you like and discuss why they work.
Below is an award winning 60 second commercial made to promote a series of holiday parks. Rather than focus on the facilities and amenities the content focuses on the experience of being on holiday. This project was so successful Coffs Harbour Council commissioned a series of national tourism destination TV commercials for the region.
Quality video matters
Once you convince your boss to spend money on a brand film or commercial you will need to convince them to invest in something worthwhile. As surely as good video marketing can build your brand, a poorly made or conceived video will fail to deliver a ROI or worse – it can work against all that you are trying to achieve with your content marketing strategy.
Ensure you talk to video production experts about creating content that will be on-brand and support your business objectives. Focus on giving potential customers something entertaining or meaningful that they will want to share. For more information on what to ask for, read our blog on the three most important steps in making a good corporate video.
This blog was written by Sydney video marketing experts, Good Eye Deer, with resources thanks to articles by: Forbes, Cocoa Video Productions, The Invisible Artists, One Market Media and D-Mak Productions.